By Kayode Abdulazeez
Osun state Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has been advised to emulate the step taken by his Oyo State counterpart at repositioning education system in the state for better. The call came at the instance of Yoruba Youth Socio-cultural Association who expressed worries in the performance of students in both internal and external examination in southwest states, most especially, the state of Osun and Oyo.
In a statement signed by the President of the association, Mr. Habib Olalekan Hammed said the recent step taken by Oyo state government to reposition the state’s education is commendable and capable of helping the future performance of students in the state.
Hammed advised that, if Osun state can equally take such a step, it would go a long way to improve students’ reading culture and boost their performance in internal and external examination.
“As we all know that Osun state students’ academic performance is worst when compared to other states in southwest. Oyo state government has directed both Ministry of Education and secondary schools in the state to ensure that only students who scored 50% in either English or Mathematics and four other subjects should be promoted to SS two and SS three and for those pupils that sat for Junior WAEC, only students that have at least five credit including English Language and Mathematics should be promoted.” YYSA President said.
He however lamented that the decision has led to unrest, owing to the fact that the affected students unleashed mayhem to the extent that they set their classrooms ablaze in Community Grammar School Isale Oyo.
The association scribe blamed the poor performance of students on all stakeholders in the education sector, “all the stakeholders including parents, students, teachers and government are to be blamed for the poor academic performance, he said.
Maintaining that ugly trends emanated from irresponsible parenthood and poverty, argued that a situation whereby a teenager that supposed to rely on parents becomes hustler whom parents depend on for survival, such condition make it too difficult for parents to control their child.
“Many of the school children are professional hawkers, immediately after school hours they begin another struggle.” He stressed.
Hammed highlighted divorce as another parental problem that has significant effect on students’ academic performance, he said, “majority of students are living with their grandparents that lack what it takes to give sound education.”
On the students’ side, he listed social media, peer group influence and many others to have contributed enormously to students’ failure posture.
Berating governments for inadequate teaching methods, unavailability of instructional materials in the schools, he said, “most of the time they hindered teaching and learning process.
He however charged government on the need to gear up to their responsibilities, stressing nonpayment of salary; poor funding of schools and politicising recruitment process have been traced to be part of the educational problems induced by government.
The association’s President thereby call on both state and federal governments to fix the nation’s economy so that parents can be economically buoyant to give their children quality and sound education.
He advised parents to inculcate morals in their wards, charges government to base Teachers’ recruitment on merit. “If not, all efforts to improve education standard will be fruitless. Any government that fails to pay teachers salary and at the same time complaining on students performance is only bellyaching, responsible government must pay salaries as at when due. He warned.
